


The Rule Book

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-12-12
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jesse goes rogue, Fiona and Sam move in together at Michael's insistence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They were picking through the ruin of Fi’s belonging when Michael made the suggestion. Sam’s reaction was simple and honest. “No freakn’ way.”

Michael raised his brow. The older man had crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at him across the divide. “I’m just trying to be sensible, Sam.”

Sam snorted. “What you’re thinking about is that little redheaded banshee of yours,” he replied. “And how quickly you can get into her pants after finding her a nice safe place to stay.”

Michael’s expression was just as implacable. “I thought the two of you made up.”

“We have. She’s like a sister to me. A sister I want to keep away from my bullet stock.”

Michael rubbed his temples. “I have enough on my mind right now, Sam. Jesse’s going crazy out there and my mother’s trying to get Nate to take her back to Nevada with him…”

Sam groaned. “Fine, Mikey. Y’want me to keep an eye on Fi for you? I’ll do it.”

“Thanks Sam,” he sighed.

“Y’know it’s gonna cost you?” Sam remarked, picking up what might have been a toothbrush at one time.

Michael hiked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to a crate of pale British ale half-hidden beneath a drop cloth in the backseat of the U-Haul they’d rented for transport. “Will this do it?”

Sam’s brow forked. “D’you get it from my usual?”

“Oh yeah,” Michael said. “And he said it was the best. “

“Now that’s why we’re pals!” Sam laughed, clapping Michael so hard on the back that his sunglasses fell off.

***

“No.”

“Fi? Fi-o-na,” Michael bit out, chasing after his quasi-girlfriend as she stalked away from him down the boulevard, licking a cone of frozen yogurt. He’d made a grave miscalculation in his hope that taking her out on a mini date might make the decision more pleasant for her, but it had, predictably, blown up in his face. “PLEASE listen to me for a second…”

“Do you really think I can’t take care of myself, Michael?”

The words were a purred double-entandre. Michael definitely knew she could handle herself and smirked. “We both know the answer to that.”

Fiona stared up at him for a moment. “Then why do you insist on foisting Sam on me?”

“I’m not,” Michael insisted. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re safe. I’m at my mom’s so I can look after her, but you…”

“…have two long-range rifles and twelve cases of plastic explosives…”

“…Which you just lost in a house explosion triggered by our ex-partner.” Michael put his hand on Fiona’s shoulder. “Please just hear me out on this one, Fi.”

Fiona sighed. “All right.” She crossed her arms, pretending to listen.

“I’m just trying to make sure you’ve got someone watching your back at all times. This would be the easiest way to do it.”

Fiona stared him down. “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Sam and I aren’t exactly bosom chums. Give me a better reason to live with him.”

Michael was temporarily caught flatfooted. Then he declared, “Sam will give you refrigerator privileges. And he won’t look in your gun case.”

Fiona paused to consider this. “How does he feel about La Femme Nikita?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Michael siged. “Come on, Fi, please. Just do this to ease my mind.”

“We’ve never liked easier, Michael,” she remarked quietly, but walked back up the boulevard with him without further protest.

***

Two hours later, Michael sat rubbing his temples at Madeline’s kitchen table. “Let’s read this back one more time,” he cleared his throat and read aloud the short list he’d been given:

GROUND RULES:

1: No barging into Sam’s room without knocking. Especially if you hear moaning.

2: Touching Fiona’s guns and gun-related accessories are forbidden, especially if you want to brag to your Navy buddies about your ‘sweet little piece on the side’.

3: Fiona’s also not to be called ‘your sweet little piece on the side’ on pain of death, unless you’re working a cover.

4: No complaining about the amount of beer in the refrigerator, and no replacing Sam’s beer with ‘healthy smoothies’.

5: No talking during ‘La Femme Nikita’.

6: No distractions during any and all Lions games.

7: All cars are the property of their original owners and not to be begged, borrowed or stolen, even in emergencies.”

Sam stared at Fi over the table. “I still wanna expand the beer clause.”

“Oh come off it, Sam! Don’t you have the courage to sign a little piece of paper?” she growled.

Sam’s dark eyes flashed. “Gimmie a pen.”

Michael watched them mark the paper with x’s and tacked it to Madeline’s refrigerator, as if they were two naughty kindergarteners signing a playground peace treaty. “Can I trust you two not to tear each other to shreds?”

“Of course, Michael,” Fiona said, mock-obedient. “I’ll make sure to leave a few chunks for identification purposes.”

“Fine.” Sam said, his smile stiff. Then he glared at Michael. “Ms. Reynolds is gonna love this.”

“Just say she’s your cousin,” Michael suggested.

“Whatever,” Sam snorted, holding out and jingling his car keys. “C’mon, Fiona Axe, let’s go for it.”

“It’s still Finley! I’m an independent woman.” Fiona tucked her purse beneath her arm, and at Sam’s confused look she expanded, “I’m your father’s trophy wife. He’s on a fishing trip in Vancouver, remember?”

“Permission to act like a bitter stepson?” he asked.

“Permisson granted, you lush,” she said, following him from the room and leaving Michael in peace.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Fiona stared at the bag of food Sam held out with absolute confusion. "Where did you get the impression that I like Indian food?"

Sam groaned. "It's all that was open," he declared, holding out the bag. "Eat it or weep."

Fiona rolled her eyes, holding out a hand. She took the bag from Sam and opened it. "Hmmm..." She held out the wrapped cylindrical objects he'd lain on top of her plastic take out contrainer. "Yours?"

"Right." He chuckled wickled as he opened the wrapper, taking out two chilli-covered hot dogs. Fiona glared at him in disgust as he shoved it into his mouth.

"If you end up with gas this afternoon you're going to spend the entire stakeout standing beside the car."

Sam grinned. "It's all right. It'd be a change from the hot air I'm getting from you." Fi rolled her eyes again, tearing into her dinner. They were both starved after two weeks of non-stop surveillance duty, and in less than ten minutes Ms. Reynold's glass coffee table was a ruin of greasy wrappers and empty paper drink containers. Sam leaned back in his chair. Fiona glared at him again, but even she was too stuffed to complain.

***

"This is what you do for fun?" Fiona asked, eyeing the Steve McQueen movie blasting from the stereo.

Sam grinned. "There's no one smoother than Steve."

She slid down in the sofa beside him. "Which one is this?"

"Bullit." He pointed at the screen. "Chase scene is about to start. You'll love this, trust me."

"I do love action." Sam's nose wrinkled in horror at the implications. Onscreen, Steve's car busted through a fruit stand. Sam watched Fiona's expression as her eyes lit up, her lips tilting into a Cheshire cat smile.

"You like it," Sam declared.

"I didn't say that," Fiona replied spiritedly.

"You do! I can tell by the look on your face."

"My expression hasn't changed once in the past ten minutes," she replied, smiling at him. At that point, Fi's cell started to rang and Sam grabbed it up, answering it.

"Fi?" Michael asked.

"Yes dear?" Sam piped in a high tone.

He could hear the tension in Michael's voice and turned sober. "Sam, put Fi on."

"I'll put you on speaker." Sam did so, at which point Michael's voice filled the air and wiped the jovial mood away.

"We've got a lead on Jesse..." Michael said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiona and Sam get closer to pulling the puzzle together...

Sam eyed the unassuming warehouse Michael had directed them to. He glanced at the piece of paper clutched in his fist before looking up at the building. “All right, this already looks like a bad idea.”

“Well, Michael does tend to be right,” she held out a bag of chips and leaned against the door of her sedan, watching it for activity. “You don’t think Jesse kidnapped him?”

“He wouldn’t be that stupid. Jesse worked in intelligence for years – he wasn’t always a desk jockey.”

“But back then,” Fiona declared, “he didn’t have forty thousand pounds of C4 hidden in a warehouse.”

“So we’ve got one choice,” Sam declared. “We call the cops or we bust in and see what we can find.”

“I think you’re approaching this violently, Sam. Let’s think peace,” she pulled a can out of her handbag. “and hairspray.”

Sam cackled as she snuck toward the building, staying as close to the exterior as possible. Using the spray to fog it, Sam jimmied the bolt and then kicked down the door.

It was a completely empty warehouse. Oddly, utterly, totally empty.

Fiona backed toward him, her hands on her gun, throwing glances over her shoulder. “Do you see…”

He pointed toward the ceiling. “Call box,” he said. “Someone’s recording us.”

Fi responded with her middle finger, and a shell from her forty-five.

“Geez, kid, you’re gonna get us shot!” Sam was busy ransacking the desks in that orderly way of his, making it look less like a robbery than a natural disaster had hit the room.

“He’s going to get himself shot,” she replied. “We’re going to thrive,” she smirked. “And look wonderful doing it.”

“Just try not to get killed.” Sam replied. He grinned. “Got it!” Suddenly he was holding a very small microphone receiver, just as Michael had told them - sitting taped to the bottom of a dresser draw. Sam rips it off and Fiona wedges a small, easy-to-mistake-for-the-real-thing device in its stead. a dresser draw. Sam rips it off and Fiona wedges a small, easy-to-mistake-for-the-real-thing device in its stead.

They leave in a trail of dust and chemical haze.

***

They eat ice cream while they listen to Jesse listen to them talk about James Dean.

“Weird night,” Sam remarks.

“I’ve seen worse,” she replies, and wipes off his melted cream mustache.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head...

“All right,” Sam said, dropping the pile of files onto the table. “We’ve got half a cabinet worth of files on Jesse, but it’s not leading us anywhere.” 

Fiona stirred her bloody mary, glowering at Michael. “You said this was a guaranteed lead,” she declared.

Michael stared at her for a moment over the top of the files. “I can’t predict anything, Fiona. Except the fact that Sam’s going to take the last beer.” 

As if on cue, Sam walked over to the fridge and plucked out a bottle of pale amber. “Hey, Mike, you’re clean out of beer.”

He gave Fi a wise look. “We’ve just got to let the bugging work for us,” Michael declared. 

“LET it,” Fiona glowered. “Michael, our lives are riding on this, and you expect us to wait around like a bunch of mollycoddles?”

“That’s better than taking two in the back,” Sam declared, which only earned him another withering glare from Fiona. “C’mon, Fi, face facts – we don’t have the firepower to get everyone out of a Government safehouse with our butts intact.”

“We’ve lived together for four months,” Fiona growled. “And you still think I’m helpless?”

“Think carefully before you answer, Sam,” Michael said, clearly enjoying their conflict too much.

“Uh…heh…no…I just…” Michael’s phone rang and spared them any further conflict. The conversation was mercifully brief. When he hung up, he had his game face on – which was a huge signal to Sam that it was action time.

“This is it,” Michael growled, and cocked his gun. “Are you ready?”

Fiona bit off her celery and headed for the door. “Quite,” she bit out, and followed Sam out the door with her rifle in hand.


End file.
